In general, producing and publishing quality content is a valuable practice for marketers but it comes with its fair share of challenges and problem areas. You see, in reality, content marketing is so much more than publishing a few blog posts every week.

As a result, it demands commitment in terms of time and resources and you may also come across several obstacles and roadblocks. Some are obvious and easy enough to deal with. Others may require an in-depth diagnosis to find a cure. Let’s look at 5 such content marketing issues.

1. No Objectives

Content marketing is like any other marketing strategy; it requires planning. Before you produce and publish content, you need to know why you are doing so because your strategy will be informed by it. For example, are you creating content to close sales more quickly or are you creating content to influence your industry and ergo inspire recognition and respect? Maybe you’re thinking about customer support! By the way, who are your main customers?

In short, no matter what your reason is for hopping onto the content marketing bandwagon, you need to have clear objectives and a strategy.

Video streaming services are becoming an increasingly important part of most small businesses today. They offer a way of interacting with customers, clients, vendors, and even employees working remotely.

Video streaming is everywhere, from your office PC to your smartphone or tablet, to the conference room. Choosing the right video streaming service is an important decision for any company because so much potentially is depending upon the quality of services it provides.

You don’t want to annoy clients or even lose business because you relied on a free service that didn’t give you the quality or bandwidth your business needed. At the same time, most small businesses can’t afford to pay for the top of the line video streaming services that they might only use once in a while.

The best approach is to find some happy medium: A video streaming service that provides you with the dependability and quality you need but doesn’t break the bank.

Here then are six live streaming video platforms for you to choose from. Read more

Instagram — the little photo sharing app that lets you post photos of your kittens and vacation pictures — has suddenly become one of the biggest and most influential marketing tools on the Internet.

Why? Because of its popularity.

Instagram currently has more than 30 billion – that’s “billion” with a “B” – images and more than 300 million active users each month. The site generates an average of 70 million photos per day, or roughly 3 million images per hour.

The most amazing statistic of all? Just five years ago, Instagram didn’t even exist. But in that short period of time, the site has undergone significant growth in its user base and in nearly every demographic group. In other words, Instagram is a marketer’s dream come true.

As a social media tool, Instagram is more powerful than Facebook and Twitter combined when it comes to brand marketing. That’s because Instagram posts generate a per-follower engagement rate – or the amount of people who actually look at the content that is posted — of 4.21%. That’s 58 times more than Facebook and 120 times more than Twitter.

To engage customers on Instagram, a business needs more than just great looking images. It also needs a thoughtful content strategy and a clearly defined brand identity based in visual creativity and effective customer engagement.

Visual social media offers unique strengths for telling compelling stories about your brand and business. To help you develop an effective Instagram strategy for building qualified leads, here are seven simple techniques you can use starting right away. Read more

If you are marketing your business online (and who isn’t at this point?), you can’t escape hearing about content marketing. In fact, “Content is King” is a phrase that’s often used and abused to underline the importance of a powerful content marketing strategy if you want to build your business online. The question is: Why is content marketing so important for marketers?

The answer lies in the very definition of content marketing, which is the strategy of producing and publishing information to:

Fuel your lead generation

Drive leads through your sales funnel to turn them into customers

Build trust and authority among customers so people feel loyal to you

And become recognized as a thought leader in your industry

The challenge is to get your content generation machine up and running. The truth is that whether you run a small, local business or head a large, global operation, a lack of budget, time and resources can prevent you from developing a strategy for regularly creating and publishing quality content.

The great news is that although content marketing sounds expensive, it does not have to be. You can succeed at content marketing on nearly any budget. All you have to do is learn how to leverage the resources at your disposal. After all, when you don’t have a lot of money, you have to get creative! Read more

A few weeks back, Instagram celebrated its 5th birthday. Did you know that in just 5 short years, the platform has gone from a single post shared by Instagram’s co-founder, Kevin Systrom, to more than 80 million photos shared every single day from around the globe?

Indeed, from brands like Burberry and Levi’s to Ben and Jerry’s and PayPal, thousands of businesses are on Instagram, creating and sharing interesting and inspiring content. Instagram is, in effect, a proven way for businesses to raise awareness for their brands. The key to success is to know how to leverage its infrastructure to target your message more effectively and reach people based on what they care about. After all, Instagram is a growing community of 400 million and if you are not using the platform to be discovered by—and interact with—customers, you do so at your own peril. The things you can do on Instagram include:

1. Using the platform as your shop window to touch, inspire and move people
2. Using landscape photo and video to give your advertising a more cinematic feel
3. Video ads of up to 30 seconds for rich storytelling
4. Using Marquee to “own a moment” and drive mass awareness, perfect for things like a new product launch or a movie release

The challenge when it comes to Instagram is that as more and more people and brands jump onto the platform, the noise level for individual users is increasing. To really stand out from the crowd, you need to understand how to promote your content on Instagram for maximum reach and impact. Read more

Infographics represent a unique way of presenting a large amount of data in a small space (in one image) in a more different and more interesting way. Infographics were first used as an element of electronic presentations. Soon, the use of infographics has expanded and now this form of presentation has become accepted as an excellent way of publishing different information – mostly numerical data and statistics.

There are many reasons why people are using this type of content. Infographics are convenient for viewing, they look attractive and they are practical when it comes to presentation of facts and data that are not very interesting. On top of that, the human brain can memorize the data presented in this way much easier.

Infographics consist of three elements – visual solution, numerical data and short textual parts. Thanks to the advancement of technology, creating infographics has never been easier. In order to make them, you will need suitable tools. This is why we have created a list of 8 tools that can help you create the best infographics. Read more

In a world of short attention spans, YouTube presents opportunities for brands and businesses to develop content strategies that will resonate with 21st-century consumers. The trick is that as more and more ads become content that people watch on YouTube, the noise level for individual users increases. Content is being uploaded and shared through YouTube at record rates.

To really stand out from the crowd, your channel and videos must be remarkable, interesting and add value. In particular, your channel is like a storefront – give it the right look to show off your style and brand it like a pro. Read more

From connecting friends and family members to bridging the gap between brands and their customers, since its inception in 2004, Facebook has become a way for people to communicate and interact online. This makes marketing on Facebook a powerful and efficient way to:

Drive online sales

Increase local sales

Promote your mobile app

And raise brand awareness

In essence, Facebook connects businesses with people, helping you build lasting relationships with people beyond those that happen during normal transactions. These relationships, in turn, help in keeping customers coming back and increase both customer loyalty and retention.

The challenge is that, as more and more brands jump on the social network, the noise level for individual users increases. To stand out from the crowd, brands need to be unique and remarkable. A big part of doing this successfully is knowing how to promote your content on Facebook to ensure that it is seen.

Tips & Best Practices for Promoting your Content on Facebook

On Facebook, you can use your Page to bring your business to life. The trick is to choose what kind of content to publish, how to share and publish your content and earn familiarity, trust and likeability in your community. Read more

This year, online video is a huge phenomenon, accounting for 50% of all mobile traffic according to an infographic from HighQ. Obviously, video is quickly becoming one of the primary ways for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs. Correspondingly, brands are developing content strategies that will resonate with consumers with ads in the form of content that people choose to watch.

Translation: In an age of information overload, online videos are naturally engaging and offer brands and businesses tons of opportunities to add value. Whether you’re running a small, local business or heading a global operation, if you ignore online video as a channel of content marketing, you do so at your own peril. Your customers are online, searching for information, recommendations and entertainment in a form that’s easy to digest and if your company is not around to answer, a competitor will be.

In short, for any social media campaign or SEO effort, video is a powerful tool effective for brand awareness, lead generation and online engagement. The challenge is to create compelling videos to bring in new viewers, introduce them to the rest of your content and build a loyal fan base.

9 Awesome Tools You Can Use to Jumpstart Your Video Marketing Strategy

1. iMovie

iMovie for Mac is perhaps one of the easiest ways to create HD-quality and Hollywood style videos. Just create a movie project and choose the clips you want to use. You can then rearrange, shorten or lengthen the clips and add titles, effects and a soundtrack. And that’s it. It’s a wrap! Send your movie to iMovie Theater to view it.

2. VideoMakerFX

VideoMakerFX is an all-in-one video creator that you can use to make awesome videos in minutes. The software is easy to master and creates all of the top video styles including Whiteboard Style, Explainer Video, Kinetic Typography, Presentations, Photo Slideshows, Logo Opener and so on. It also offers a range of customization options such as text fonts and effects, background customization and animation effects.

3. Screenr

Screenr is a web-based screen recorder that makes it incredibly easy to record and share a screencast. You have nothing to install or download and it is completely free. For businesses that can demonstrate a product or service on a computer, Screenr is a great option.

4. Camtasia

Camtasia by TechSmith is yet another easy-to-use screen recorder that lets you create professional videos without having to be a video pro. With a host of editing tools, it can be used for everything from quick video demos to extensive video projects. Standout features of Camtasia include multi-track timeline, visual effects, green screen effect and animate content. Read more

When it comes to running a social media campaign, many brands and businesses assume that the campaign starts when they send out their first Tweet and it ends when they send out their last one. It’s not that easy! Social media marketing is not as simple as posting a few times on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and the traffic will pour in.

So if your social media campaigns are failing, it’s probably because there is a fundamental problem with the way you are approaching your campaigns. For example, maybe you didn’t:

1. Identify your Target Audience.

Whether you’re promoting a hair product for balding men or you are planning a nationwide movement to transform the way aid is provided to Africa, you need to identify your target audience to speak their language. Read more